World Keeper

Chapter 535: New Additions

Ashley stood alone in the void of space, holding a coin in between her fingers. On one face of the coin was a seven pointed star, while the other face showed the image of a closed book. The coin itself was silver in color, and reminded Ashley of a quarter, causing her to smile.

This was the prototype coin that had been created by Leowynn and Ryone, to represent the new system that the two of them wished to create together. Now, it was Ashley’s job to finalize the process.

“Open directory. Generate system template.” Ashley muttered to herself, and a series of blue windows appeared before her. Each one seemed to show a different system already installed within the overall world system. Her eyes scanned over these windows, looking for something to serve as a starting point.

When she landed on the Guild system, her smile tugged a bit further upwards. The Guild system had quite a lot of what they needed, but was missing certain key components. Would it be faster to program the system from scratch? She thought inwardly, before shaking her head.

Ashley lifted the ability to send messages across any distance from the Guild system to use as the basis for connecting the coins. To store the items and currency in a sub-dimensional space, she lifted that particular trait from the Quest Contracts system.

From there, she only had to tweak little details. Removing the travel time of messages by linking all coins together. Converting the contracts from requiring tasks to payment. Allowing the information to be presented in an organized table that could be sorted by currency type. And, of course, adding a search function.

As she was creating the system, Ashley had an instinctive sense of just how much energy this was going to cost her, as well as how much different aspects influenced that cost. The fact that she was largely pulling functions from other systems alleviated the burden she was facing by quite a lot. Enough so, in fact, that the organized table and search function were the most expensive parts of this new system.

“So… making an entirely new system by hand would cost quite a bit more, huh?” She wondered, dismissing the irrelevant windows. Within the one that remained, she had created a circular indentation, awaiting the item that would be used as the focus to trigger the system. Naturally, she placed the coin in that slot.

“Save file. Compile as… Universal Trade.” She nodded her head at the name, and the coin was absorbed into the window. She could feel the drain on her divine power, how it rushed out of her body to integrate this new system with the rest of the world.

I watched Ashley work, a satisfied smile on my face. This was her first time doing this, so I was naturally curious how it would go as well. Thankfully, she had enough energy to continue. The system would only be applied to one group of worlds at a time, so she would have to repeat the process in Spica.

At that thought, I glanced over towards Fyor. Would she need to perform the install there, as well? Or would the new system being installed to the world system cause the automatic generation of a system orb?

I pulled open the map of Fyor, running a search for any new crystal orbs. To my disappointment, the system was not so kind. Only items purchased through the Keeper Market would automatically generate a system orb, it seemed.

A weight pressed against my side, and I looked over to see Terra leaning against me, a gentle look on her face. “Looks like little Leowynn’s about to become a lot more popular.” She said happily, seeing how the system was settling in.

“Good.” I nodded my head. “By the way… if Ashley were to install this into Fyor, would she have to do so for each floor individually, or just once at the core?”

Terra let out a light giggle, shaking her head. “Sorry, Dale. Each layer of Fyor is essentially its own independent world, cut off from each other. That’s why the crystal spires are so important.”

I sighed, having worried as much. Out of curiosity, I opened the Keeper Market, searching for the production method for the crystal orbs. It had been so long now that I knew someone would have put it on the market already. Even if they hadn’t created it themselves, and were just using the system to fill in the gaps for them.

Soon enough, I found a production method for a blank system orb for this world type. It only cost thirty points to buy the blueprint, but… it required at least fifth tier in either spiritual energy or mana. We were still only barely touching the fourth tier, so I did not even qualify to know how to make that.

“She can take her time to go through Fyor.” I said with a sigh, knowing that there wasn’t really a way around that at this point in time. Thankfully, the systems should all be linked together as long as she uses her saved template. None of the laws within it should conflict between Spica and Earth, so the crossover should be just fine.

Oi, lad! Tubrock’s voice echoed into my mind. Ye got a minute?

Blinking in surprise, I subconsciously nodded my head. Did you find anything in those bases?

Sadly, I can’t say that I learned how they converted the raw void to building materials. That part should be included in a system that they had, I think. But I got their portal tech understood, at least a little bit. It works from the tech angle, rather than the magic angle we use.

As for somethin’ that we don’t already have… I found somethin’ interestin; in their kitchen. They use sub-dimensional spaces with artificial environments to farm their ingredients. Each type of ingredient has its own simulated environment, and they are automatically harvested after a certain threshold.

My brow furrowed a bit when I heard that. What about meat? Do they have pastures set up in those spaces?

Aye! They have devices in their pastures that pull food for the animals from the necessary dimensional farms. Each base has a couple hundred sub-dimensions for all of the different ingredients!

My eye twitched a bit when I heard that. That was… definitely extravagant. They had only been here for a couple of months, right? How did they manage to make that many bases in such a short time? Did they have those spaces stored in some kind of item?

Aye! Thought ye might’a caught that. The farms themselves won’t do us much good, since they’re only good for low level ingredients. But the storage system that is able to contain up to two hundred sub-dimensional spaces and make their entrances portable? Now that’s somethin’ we could get excited for!

I thought that over for a bit, and nodded. I could certainly see how that could be useful for us in the future. We were getting to the point where magic was capable of creating a small, independent world. Although most effects of such a world could be covered through simpler means, I could predict that there would be some new uses for this.

For instance… imagine having a portable world that served as a home? Rather than needing to construct a campsite, just drive a single device into the ground and use it to create a portal that can lock from the other side. As long as the device isn’t discovered, there would be nothing to worry about in regards to safety.

Maybe creating two entrances would allow them to place the second opening in a safer space, so that they would have a way out even if their device was destroyed… While it wouldn’t be so convenient as a replenishing food source like the invaders used, it would still offer some small benefits.

Understood. Were you able to learn anything else from the bases?

Hearing my question, there was a brief pause. Sadly not. Most of their tech is stuff we already got. The few pieces that aren’t rely on different systems to pull power and resources directly from the void. Can’t copy those with just reverse engineering.

I thought about that for a moment, before nodding my head. There were a total of thirty-six bases that I had seen through my world sight during the invasion. Not counting the one that was largely ruined in our conflict, that left thirty-five bases in pristine condition.

Can you remove the teleporters that link the bases, and modify the rest to only connect with publicly available destinations? Might as well remove the sub-dimensional farms while you’re at it, since those aren’t particularly useful for us. We can prepare those thirty-five bases as special rewards for some future event.

Aye, those changes shouldn’t be hard at all. What’ll we do when somethin’ inevitably breaks down and needs maintenance, though? Tubrock asked in response to my request, which made me furrow my brows.

Although we can’t replicate the devices… is it possible to create ‘repair kits’ with Ashley’s divinity? That was the only answer that I could immediately come up with for the issue. Otherwise, the bases would only ever last until something broke, at which point they’d simply be abandoned until we had the sufficient technology to replace any broken devices.

I’ll ask the lass about that when she’s done makin’ her rounds. After he said that, it seemed that there wasn’t anything else for him to report, as I felt the connection closing. While we didn’t learn as much as I wanted from these bases, at least it wasn’t a total loss.

Who knows… maybe Leowynn will be able to use her Void domain to replace some of the components in those machines Tubrock had problems with.

A wave of news soon swept over the myriad worlds. The churches of two major gods, Ryone and Leowynn, had jointly created a new organization with the blessing of both deities. This was the first combined organization among the divine since the four sisters, and this one seemed to have quite the shocking purpose.

This organization, known as the Boundless Caravan, offered the concept of unity through trade. So long as a member of this organization was present, they would be able to initiate trade with any other member of the organization, regardless of world or distance. For a small commission fee, merchants could place their goods for sale with the Boundless Caravan, and would be notified by the organization with their payment when those goods were sold.

Of course… this did not make normal stores obsolete. The Boundless Caravan specialized in trading rare goods and materials, as well as emergency supplies and luxuries. As a result, their prices were naturally somewhat higher than if one were to go to a common store.

However, even regardless of this fact, the organization rapidly spread throughout the various worlds. If one were to travel with a member of the Boundless Caravan, then they would never have to worry about running out of food and supplies, so long as they had the coin to afford it.

Because of this, the organization first spread to those most hostile environments, including the less hospitable floors of Fyor. Any ship that was scheduled to depart from a world chose to first wait to do so in the hopes that they could hire a member of the Boundless Caravan. After all, it wasn’t simply enough to be a worshipper of both Ryone and Leowynn.

In order to access the trade platform, one must truly join the organization. This was something determined by the Goddesses themselves, making it so that one was unable to create the Boundless Coin if they were not a registered member. Thanks to this, there was an influx of worshippers to both the Church of the Glittering Tome and the newly formed Church of the Starry Night, many wishing to be registered for this prestigious position.